Breather

 Taking a breather from posting Solara work. Working on a few new things besides Solara. Friendly reminder, you can read some longer form writing from me here. 

These modes of operation limit me
and I am still not sure if the light
above my skull is my own.

The wonder seeps from
my ear and onto the floor
for enterprising ants to collect.

Bring it back to another algorithm
of their own making; 0 and 1 and
heaps of garbage and ant shit.

Someone will call it golden
or another form of high praise
heralded by a dented bugle.

Collect it all and put it for sale under an arcane listing in print or in some coded tubings;

let the people decide.

Solara 26-35

 Full steam ahead, comrades.

XXVI

I didn’t want to write it down/let it come to life off of the page/wanted it to stay in my mind/this swirling kite of internal flames and broken shards of glass/left it to whither in a darkened corner next to childhood embarrassments/instead/it scorches itself free from the paper and sets itself upon my shoulder/dutiful companion/my only true one/long since past the point of a single refrain/a single return to whatever came before its screeching entrance into this overturned room/this mess I’ve made/nothing to be done/everything is already set/

XXVII

When words are set to fire/the smoke is a wisdom and a killer/lifting itself high above the flashpoint of a flame/above our worldly concerns/the sky drinks what comes its way and coughs complicated clouds of sentence structure out over our fair city/the sky, always learning/always preparing itself for the next great idea we feed it/soon, the preparations will be over/soon everything will be the way we dreamed it/one bonfire at a time/

XXVIII

When flame is feeding/avoid meal time/you will see each crackle and burst/a snarl/fangs in a fevered dance with prey/not a single wet eye in the room/all susceptible to the itch/the scratch/the tug of the spark and scrape of each and every singe mark/lining the otherwise plain walls/off white/plaster/peppered with the marks of a flame whose only time keeping is the measure of its hunger/crawling towards what will soon be cinders/

XXIX

More than stupid hair metal/we’re something classic/individual spokes on a wheel that will only move forward/locking itself when reversed/nuts and bolts rusting with speed/with alacrity/we will remain in the front yard/dry rotted memories/a monument to what was once glorious and is now of slight embarrassment/each stupid solo/each flick of the mane/every shout and controlled explosion/none of it matters as the dew in the grass reaches our fringes and sets in/

XXX

What is/left for me/next to yesterday’s castoffs/waiting to be collected by the pickers/dustmen/the trash collection agencies/clandestine recyclers with balaclavas/I haven’t even had my say yet/gotten to shuffle through what you left for me/before/this descent/before the throngs and the multitudes of interested parties scrape the collection for personal gain/before/I can reclaim something to call my own/something to link me from a past to a present/to the future now/and the current then/all/in/one/

XXXI

King and beggar/ascend thy throne to the scorched heavens/clouds on fire again/should have sprung for the sprinkler package/here, on earth/we all stand marveling at the coronation of one so plain/the ascent to a sky so ruined/what has become of thy kingdom/here, on earth/we are far less presumptive/no royalty among us/not in the alleys/not in the dark spaces that sun and sky on fire’s light refuse to touch/wading through the refuse/we are all our own lords and magistrates/kindling for an even greater burn zone/ready for the next spark to fly/

XXXII

Will the molten earth burn through my fineries/I hope not/these suckers cost a grip/a whole band of the green stuff/none of that imitation/performance art pants and off brand accouterment/natural disasters are never timed well, but this was supposed to be more coronation/the scepter is already drooping from this heat/what is one man/even a king/to do about the ambient temperature/my loyal subjects/bring water/

XXXIII

I’ve always felt my most confident when wearing a mask/someone else’s face/someone else’s problems superimposed over my own/the rest is green screen/I am free to be a different version of me/maybe not me at all/to gawk and stare and sneer and smile and weep openly behind this heavy, sweaty material/even with my vision obscured/dehydration setting in/the dizzying smell of a latex overload/I’ve never been more myself/more alive/than right now/

XXXIV

Hello there/hi/yes/this is me looking to speak to you/will you open the door/will you/open your mouth/your heart/to the good news that I am willing to share with you right now/at this location/in this very moment/I won’t even ask for a hug/this time/we may have gotten off on the wrong foot/though I am willing to be your honest companion/maybe even a sidekick/if that’s what you are into here/yes, mother told me I can come on a little strong/but/you’re very important to me/to this entire enterprise/really/and I’d love to explain myself/explain us/to you/

XXXV

Sometimes these feel a little/too soon/too close to the heart of the matter/something that knows me in ways I am not sure I know myself/looking through my soul/instruments of knowledge/instruments of pain/instruments of experience/innocence/music as a weapon X/misery as a balm and a tonic/a body translucent/a spirit on display, rattling its cage/demanding, through tears and triumph/to let itself out for a walk on a day with a clear sky and birdsong/

Solara 16-25

 Going to speed this up a little more because I'm in a different space with the later numbers and I want to share them sooner. NOTE: Image 25 has odd typography because the model I used isn't versed in it. I gradually have gotten more into removing filters from the various models and letting it come up with what it comes up with without any other parameters. I guess we'll see where it takes us.

XVI

Good heavens/we should probably have looked at the weather before trying anything like this/it’s really hit the fan this time/we’ll definitely need the calvary/maybe the Royal Canadian Navy/at the very least some intrepid astronauts with a certain deathwish/we’ll need to fix the celestial reasoning and map the interior all over again/what a tangled web the spider weaves above us/we, the ants/we, the flies who thought that the shimmering grandeur was just a trick of our thousand eyes/now we’ve got some serious mea culpas to be giving out/they’ll make a big ol line and we’ll practice our serious faces again/deep, caring stares/this will take all week/

 

XVII

The globe was glass and shattered by a series of small pellets shot from a pellet gun/hard to know the assailant’s angle or destination/the world spins and the globe follows suit at a counter angle/like all agents of chaos/the pellet flies without any real agency/doing what he is told to do/by a master really no more equipped for the job/than the globe itself/spinning without a sense of dignity/alone on the dance floor/mind melding with the music/a song like no other playing/even the audience is disinterested/the cracks are already forming but for these next 3 minutes/everything is ballet/

XVIII

No thoughts and prayers undo the act when it was undone/they don’t put the python back inside the jar/spring loaded/always ready/have you ever tried to put a snake who has been shot out of a jar back into it for a second attempt/have you lived to tell the tale/you know as well as I do that there are certain things that are happy accidents/one and done and done as one/the jar must remain empty for the rest of eternity/there are consequences for our decisions and snake bites that need immediate attention/

XIX

nature was healing and then we built an Arby’s ripoff on top of it and had to hunt all the animals to fuel BIG MEAT/we were indiscriminate about what went into the grinder/what was boiled to a liquid state and shipped out in plastic bags/what was wrapped up and thrown under the heat lamp of progress/listen, I personally think nature was getting too big for its britches, but I’m usually the guy who orders the salad when I’m out/why couldn’t we get a bistro or something/and just because I work the heat lamp and slice the meat that comes across my deli stand, that doesn’t make me complacent/I have a family/I have a mortgage/I had dreams and look where they got me/why does nature get a pass/

XX

Where will they go/we don’t build the space to put them but/we don’t stop them from marching in on their hooves/planting their defecation everywhere/stinking up the clearing and/ laying down for ill-timed naps/I wish I had brought myself a set of pajamas and a pillow then/I could at least join them/cross the aisle if/you will/watch my step in the field to avoid all of the droppings/it’s about what I expected but/man, if I just can’t stop yawning/looking at them sleeping all peaceful/brings a tear to my eye/

XXI

Sometimes my shadow moves me/I think he’s working against my best interests/I’ll look in the mirror and he isn’t quite there/but I know he’s waiting/impassive shade of myself/silent observer/an agenda in the way he guides me as the sun rises and falls/and even when the lights are out/I can feel the fact that he is out there/ready to take over at an opportune moment/I am saddled with a fear so great/so profound/I will lay here for a while/in the absence of light/to think about my next course of action/pray for a cloudy day/

XXII

Give the unseen majority their credit/I suppose/from the covered balcony of the opera house/throwing their garbage on acts that offend/leaving the peanut shells and coffee grinds and eggshells/for the brightly-lit cleanup crew//each of these acts, a disappointment/ruined by screen time and gazing at their belly buttons/the belly button, a siren song/lost among the roiling current of smooth skin/an indent/the remnant of an umbilical bond/calls to these performers/the unseen majority lets loose their slings and remnants of processed, packaged goods/while we, the custodians, are left to sweep it up/ 

XXIII

composite/I am a single wheat plant/otherwise barren field/another full moon/illuminating my tendrils/somewhere/the sound of coyotes/eyes illuminating the dark corners of a field without anything to offer/my, how the hunger will drive us to the strangest corners of the world/even when the rumbling shakes the earth itself/somewhere the feathers of a molting bird float to the sunlight/somewhere the sound of coyotes becomes a trumpet and the plate is full of color and wonder/somewhere is never here/

XXIV

My light is ill-begotten/placed in spaces it has no business/shining/no business of emanation from the point of its origin/my light/like no other/in the left vertical third/like it is not quite wanting to be at the center of the image/still though/presents itself/presents my fleeting frame/cut in one minute/returning to the reel another/what I would give for some decent darkness/true rest/I haven’t earned this/maybe though/it’s deserved/

XXV

We’ll want the truth out of you yet/we’ll know just the way to get it/pry from you, one single tear of guilt/let the rest remain/you’ll need to save them/as we put your story through its paces/make detailed notes about consistencies/inconsistencies/fun facts to share at interrogator dinner parties/no, we don’t wear these masks at these/yes/our partners make fabulous spreads and never overcook the main course/we could/not be more alike/we could/not be less alike/we are a version of the other/in line/sorting itself/as we go through the song and dance prescribed by our forebears/long ago/

Solara 11-15

Another week and a few more of these.

XI.

Thus arrived at the catacombs, our hero lights a torch/the remnants of a lost civilization/the bones, lots of bones from something not quite him, but also entirely familiar/so many arms/where do they all belong/like lonely people/these appendages/crawling in search of comfort on a night with a full moon/the dead and their secrets/the living whisper but the dead, howl/what will they tell one another/ 

XII.

The simpler explanation for supernatural events/perhaps a costumed ball/or a trick of sunlight/halloween celebrated at a later date/anything other than the undeniable sense/the knowledge monsters are//in fact//the realest thing about life as we know it/all of these white sheets with eye holes/dancing with punch in their hand/growling hearts/waiting for the civilized to descend into madness themselves/

XIII.

Up above the cloudline/mountains jawing at one another/left to their own asymmetrical devices/what comes from above the treeline is a mystery and open note quiz/each one/new dialogues with the thinner air/seeking the view without the squawking dementia of the beasts of air/a mountain will wait forever/until every rock has loosened and all that is left/rubble and ash/the clouds laughing mirthless whistles of a knowledge always reached for but never attained/another game to them/a different matter to the rest of us/

XIV.

Real peace in a single gulp of air/simple and unvarnished/nothing left to consider an accessory to the matter/the viewer looks at the picture/sees himself in the picture/looking at a picture/lets himself fall into the loop he has witnessed/has always witnessed/let us follow this exhibit/this display/to its logical conclusion/in summation/let us to live out the sequence and be caught in its

purest oxygen/know the first and final moment/at once/

XV.

I’d like to believe that the best of us/see it/know it/and know its destination/observe and record the trajectories/make impressive calculations/we can land it on the eye of a needle/on the only solid mass found on the sun/or/an island wracked by turbulent seas/we’re seeing what the human spirit might be capable of/as a carousel/round and round into a black hole/down the hatch/with the best of us believing we can still stick the landing/

Solara 7-10

 These are images 7-10. I'll probably start doing 5 at a clip from here on out. 

VII

When examining the cacophony of the static/locate the world’s smallest pestilence/a plague of microscopic variation and proportions/built out of misshapen, sickly molecules/moldy like old food/how we can be sure be sure the good ones get out/when they escape/quiz them with a carefully constructed multiple choice exam/limit validity/only when you feel the vice around the edge tightening itself/the screws turning/the seams coming undone and the deep crush of the weight of the moment upon us at last/

VIII

Steal the smoothness from my feet/disrupt easy walking/scowl and scrunch the face in a forced demonstration of pain/show those around you/this is how you perform/on a stage, not there/never really present/grit beneath you/wandering eyes track the flight path of your lumbering to the oblivion of your peace/lest i remind you what it is we’re looking to do here/each step already a trumpet’s cry of agony/

IX

God and a man walked on a beach/god was a lizard who carried the man in his dark times/he also carried him in his light times/God was rather accommodating that way/a holy glow/clear skies/all those goddamned hymns following him like sad little groupies/the man appreciated being carried by God/it made him feel A-OK about life even if God was a scary lizard thing that also smoked a corn cob pipe and wore a monocle from time to time/in a time of miracles, this was among the most unlikely, he supposed/a dull breeze at his back/the beach extended forever/there were worse ways to go/

X

another monument of stone facing the visitors from the sea/the shoreline is cluttered/we, indiscriminate in our monument building/the step below sainthood/see the cloud’s open/God’s hand reaching down to adjust the playthings built for him/built for the vessels of visitors/they will know what matters to us/if they can find parking/they too will join us/hand in hand (or whatever passes for a hand in their parts/sing their legends into being/we shall craft their truths as well and blot out each grain of sand with edifice/another goes up now/another tomorrow/and the day after/know our truths

Solara 4-6

 Another week, more of the Solara. I also posted the root poem (Solara .5) that inspired image 1. I had it in a separate document before getting started in earnest.

IV.
Schooled in the ways of the hunt/from miles away/all these opportunities/bring a friend/feast and famine/sunlight echoing from above us/caught in a ripple/we dream this moment/before impact/each day/each night/moon and sun shifting in arrangement/punch in and punch out/seeing the dream and knowing it is a mind’s projector/slapping images on your optic nerve/this vision for you and you alone/no matter who is there with you in this moment/you will wake up with the moon through the window and a cold, empty space on the other side of the bed/

V.

Not quite one time of day/face unrecognizable/what has this hour done to me/I would be willing to scream, were I sure I that I could/what I have been inside for too long/manifesting on the outer reaches of my person/howl to the flight paths of bats/listen for the rumblings of a nocturnal symphony/hear my silent contribution/as wistful note of oration/forgotten before it has left me/

VI.

what was autumn but summer’s dregs/nightfall and the swell of familiar chirps and croaks and bleats and wind swells/another cycle stretched beyond its shelf life/this lasting negative of a photograph expanding into the air-all we see/the image and the reflection/as the dark takes hold and the stars bear witness the movement of the ants below/

Solara .5

 Where would I be without the initial prompt that started the Solara? This is the prompt that generated Solara 1 and became the basis for the continuing process.

grill it/put it to the fire/sear it with the heat reaction/internal/external/absolute and at a minimum//and we’ve been waiting for some sense of closure/some finality on the matter/instead, it’s another slow burning sensation at the outer limits of our own extremities/pins-and-needles-esque/the thermometer will find no purchase/no way to track the errant glow of a body made new through flame/purified in the light/let me sing as the smoke rises/my words will be known/even when the skin droops and melts away and the song becomes a funeral dirge/a fugue/the words a prayer and condemnation/

Solara 1-3

I got the idea for this project from a co-conspirator who explained a process of beer making where someone uses wild yeast and plays with a common beer recipe but allows the various flora and fauna of the previous brews and their interactions with yeast/bacteria to make each common beer unique. The concept of something evolving over time based on previous iterations resonated with me. 

I started playing with AI images as I began constructing what will be the covers to some zines (the first being currently in my possession...but more on that later)/other works. As I worked with our AI overlords, I put a random draft of a poem into the prompt generator and then, using the picture it created as an influence, I wrote a new poem. This has now become something of an obsession. Here are the first 3 iterations of this. I'd love to know what you think about this.

I. 

I could sell you on a fast food dream/let you taste the sweet flame-broiled glory/let you in on a little secret/this dream-for you, for me-comes apart at the wrong temperatures/like an oil painting nightmare/running on the edges/watch as we all fall away/but, under 10 bucks/that right there, you know there’s no room for regret when you’ve got liquidity/riding in style/saving for another day/as the calories reach a high score/you know what we’re saying here, don’t you/

II.

Line ‘em up/like eternity/ill-equipped for a future that can’t be avoided/great celebratory gestures/we are clowns in the finery of business casual/muted pastels and conservative stripe patterns/fueling ourselves with cartoon dream, hometown delicacies/you won’t be able to tell us apart and I won’t be able to tell me apart and no one is going to know a whole lot/anymore/

III.

Denial of laughter/you’ll be in a window frame/observed by shadows/hand drawn spectacle/sharks and minnows where you are both/a silent majority watches you/honking their displeasure as a goose/and what is good for the gander/this was never humorous but my sides are splitting/just the same

thaw

 

/colder questions and answers exist/out there in the great vacuum/maybe/old arrangements of possibility/possibilities even/slide on down this sliding floor/this conveyor belt/slipshod orderings and curated flim flam//

agents of chaos/agents of the tundra/kept frozen-to your place/left to thaw in limited sunshine of another winter day/languid growing season of a few hours//

these answers aren't for anyone/but you/waiting for feeling to return/to the extremities//

pick your poison/glug it down like the first hot drink you've had in an epoch/loud gurgling noises with the other poison sommeliers/a toast to the apothecarial vintage/some kind of death wish complex-maybe/let it fester inside/what was warm is so cold/so much time to live with yourself//

so much time to know it/all//

flag on the field

If you're interested in reading my most recent essay on the EXCELLENT novel Biography of X, click here.

no more resistance to the flowing of this timeline will be allowed after the allotted time for complaints has expired/you've had your change too/you had to file the forms and appropriate permits in triplicate/therefore, none of this should come as a surprise to you/or us/trajectory being what it is/we know the shape of the destination/of the departures/the tangents and the non sequitur/no more distractions from the path we've set into motion long before you're approval or denial was even a factor/even a consideration/the business of fairness and the business of business are inherent to our enterprise/time, our most controllable commodity/dividends influence the minute and the second hand/fly on/fly true/with our blessing and your understanding/being what it is/in all things/constant/with our gratitude on retainer/for every occasion/another cycle/begin/ 

pyramid

Brief note: Working out the last bits on two projects for possible release in the coming months. More on that as the time approaches. Here's the weekly work in the meantime:

This is a grift for the ages

linked to disturbing trends

from the deep past,

packaged with 30 percent

less plastic and a pastel

theme. Made exciting by

influencers with pretty-shaped

noses and an hourglass figure

gripped by the hands of Chronos

himself. Thy memory does not fail

you, even in your hour of vulnerability

to a product you do not need

or have the space for in your already full

basement or that you might have denied

three times before the first crack of

rooster refrain. Even then. You are still

a victim to an angry consumer god who 

comes down from his solar paneled heaven

in a Cyber Truck playing Fleetwood Mac out of its speakers and calls everybody “babe” or “stud” and gives one of those winks and snaps

his fingers into pantomime guns. We are all victims

to his glorious awareness of the elasticity of demand and the sustainability of selling old ideas to us after we forget about them. We will one day

worship better false gods. They’ll fix everything when we get there. Just you wait.

set it and forget it

give me/a new lease on my leash/my liege/contain me in a non-liminal space/free range and farting out my lineage/all in the movements/tear it down/burn an establishment/fear, now/I’ll let you know when the time is right/how much of time is even a factor/so much/borrowing from the language of the proles/like I am some sort of nobleman/like I have that kind of juice/fresh squeezed/unhappy accidents piling up in the shoulder lane/golden, like the past/unlimited salad and breadsticks with a pasta option/we’re all family now/send it up, an offering, in delicate flames/watch the way they saunter in their effective destruction/here is an eclipse, an appropriate darkness, lit only by the fire of our own making/haunting the skyline/another set of ghosts for the future to speculate about, find the finer points of existence/a feverish pace as the last ember turns to ash and falls back to my feet/I am once again thinking of newness-my relative purity in this filthy time/ash footprints all around us/who knew how well our tributes would take to the hunger of the flame/each of my ancestors will brush it from themselves, set up shop, and make their way in this iteration of a universe/salespeople, all of us/always selling and there’s never a shortage of customers/save your place in line now and act surprised when this one takes a direct hit from the mouth of the flame/there’s still so much to burn/

Sepia

 A

i am already missing these moments already

mourning the arrival of the future broken glass

birds sharp little edges to grip with care

with ease of motion their song bleeds out from

the point of impact majesty in eighth notes and

jilted harmonics my grief in shorthand copied 

onto the pad near the old rotary phone sad stop r

called for lw @ 4 re: old news

grief in the well long gone and dried up

i will fill my cup with the dirt left behind

guzzle what remains choke on this vintage grit

it was a great year that year

the tears start falling now still 

my throat and lungs scream for relief

another swig of the dirt another reminder

the memories will just keep on coming so will

the wracking coughs the fine particulate coating 

my convulsing stomach

i am frothing at the mouth wild eyed beast

the laughter has joined the party

i have never felt more connected to what i’ve lost

i have never known it until now

Groaning (A Celebration)

 

Nothing serious happens/not here/even without the soundtrack to inspire reflection/dumb silence/sounds of a sniff/another cough/shuffled papers/

Why/why is there another explosion of noise in the quiet spaces/why can’t it occur within an appropriate space/

Nothing serious/another minor discharging of sonic exultation/another motion denied/motion suspended/superseded by previous motions/nothing/

Serious/a sense like urgent/a sense like panic/met with the reverence of a seance/ghost stories/memory/urban legend/tall tales/mythos/coming of age/

Why/why/why/when it all shakes out/why/am I the one tasked with the burden of remembering/another time/another place/why/again, with feeling//

Sunday Funday

little birds on my lawn/nests in the bushes next to my house/nests 

that start families/a neighborhood fox/homewrecker/engages in dastardly

plots for sunny side up bird eggs/unlimited mimosas and avocado toast/this

fox in its ostentatious hat, it knows how to brunch/does it for instagram/stupid hat

selfies in front of the nests, ruined by hunger/by natural impulse and an algorithm

feeding the fox a buffet of brunch picture comparisons/

bird corpses litter my front yard/nests ripped apart, left dangling in the bushes/disrupted 

and shredded/errant sticks on my front steps/no sign of the errant hurricane of influence, just the good bones of a nest made with something like love, snapping under my feet as i leave to find a meal for myself/we are out of avocados again